PETER HANDKE: A Sorrow Beyond Dreams (New York Review Books Classics)

A Sorrow Beyond Dreams (New York Review Books Classics)

 Peter Handke  (Author), Ralph Manheim  (Translator), Jeffrey Eugenides 

From Library Journal

In this heartwrenching account of his mother's illness and death, the avant-garde Austrian novelist and playwright Handke (Once Again for Thucydides; Ride Across Lake Constance and Other Plays) details his struggle to tell the story of his mother's life and his relationship to her without turning it into an overwrought elegy.

The result, first published in the United States in 1974 as part of a collection (this is the first time it has been published as a freestanding book), is indeed considered by most critics to be one of Handke's finest literary achievements, one that is much less abstract than much of his other writing. 

Seven weeks after his mother's suicide in 1971, Handke felt compelled to preserve his memories of her, of their life together during the postwar misery, and to record his rage over the problems that his mother left for him to solve after her death.

Both his anger at this legacy and his admiration for his mother are obvious, and the essay is melancholy and lucid. Highly recommended for large public library and academic literary collections.

Ali Houissa, Cornell Univ., Ithaca, NY

PETER HANDKE was born in Griffen, Austria, in 1942. His many works include The Jukebox and Other Essays on Storytelling (1994), Absence (1990), and Repetition (1988).